CPU vs Platform centric approach
But Jim McGregor, chief technology strategist at In-Stat argued that the actual process tech gap was actually not as great as it appeared. "Intel makes its jumps at the big nodes and moves everything over at once whilst the rest of the industry use sub nodes and move production over incrementally," he explained, noting that AMD and IBM could in fact ramp a lot faster because of the way they moved the process tech over in bits.
Nevertheless, McGregor concurred that AMD was "still behind" and, worse still, because its manufacturing was no longer done in-house, "the price per wafer has gone up and that's a problem for AMD". So whilst the smaller chip firm may not be so far behind in terms of manufacturing, "there is a bigger question in terms of product and price competitiveness," according to McGregor.
At the end of the day, as Brookwood summed it up for HEXUS: "Intel and AMD may be playing in the same ballpark, but they're playing very different games." Intel, unsurprisingly, will stick with its highly CPU-centric approach, hoping customers will accept its "good enough" graphics, whilst AMD will be aiming for the more "platform-centric" approach.
This means the firm has to convince buyers to place a higher value on what they see on screen rather than what they can measure abstractly via CPU benchmarks. But AMD has precious little room to maneuver and it's not at all clear the firm has the marketing skills or clout to convince buyers to focus on the platform. "But the approach certainly has some merit," according to Brookwood.
For Roger Kay though, it's not just about which company delivers the best technology fastest. "There's [still] a role for AMD to play, if nothing more than as a second-source supplier," he told us."The industry badly wants AMD to remain viable. All the company has to do is make decent products in the mainstream price points, and its customers will be happy."
Whether those customers are willing to wait it out for another 18 months, however, remains to be seen.
